Traveling Through a Network

            The websites that I decided to check my current ping on were Google.com, news.com.au, and japantimes.co.jp. I selected these because they are spread out quite well so I thought it would be interesting to select websites in three distinct areas in different parts of the world.

According to TestOut Corp. (2024), “Most people who use the Internet are comfortable if this time is 50 milliseconds or shorter.” The ping minimum for Google was 36ms, the maximum was 44ms, and the average was 37ms. The minimum ping for news.com.au was 58ms, the maximum was 70ms, and the average was 61ms. The minimum ping for japantimes.co.jp was 12ms, the maximum was 16ms, and the average was 13ms. The Google and Japan Times pings are within the comfortable times as listed in our textbooks. The News.com.au pings were not. They exceeded the comfort levels listed in our textbooks. I do find it interesting that the Ping in Japan is better for me than the ping for Google. I am in Minnesota, so I would think that Google would have a better ping.

            When looking at the trace routes of the three websites, you can see that Google hopped 12 times, Japan Times hopped 9 times, and News.com.au hopped 17 times. These are all different parts of the world. However, it is interesting that the website from Japan had the fewest number of hops. Logically, the further away a place is, the longer it would take for the data to make a round-trip. Both commands used provide a clear picture of the latency and packet loss for the services provided. Using both of them can help determine the problem at hand. These issues can range from network congestion to problems with your local network, all the way to your firewall blocking traffic. One of the issues that could cause an error or a timeout is a firewall blocking the traffic, as it was not designed for that specific purpose. Another possibility is that the network cables may be damaged or poorly connected, resulting in connectivity loss.